AMD teases TressFX, a 'new frontier of realism in PC gaming' to be unveiled February 26

The future of hair is here. AMD launched a new teaser site today with the headline, "TressFX: A New Frontier of PC Realism" and an unveiling date of February 26 for their new tech. "Render. Rinse. Repeat." Just off of word association, along with the teaser image found in the header, it's clear AMD's got some new hair technology they're excited about showing.

Resident techy and our communications guru here at Neo, Mr. Gabe, says the word is AMD's got some fresh particle effect and tessellation systems to handle realistic hair volume. Much preferable to, say, typical polygonal LEGO hair. Obviously, this is one of the reasons male protagonists are preferred in video games -- short hair. Good to see AMD taking steps to break the status quo.

Look forward to more news on Tuesday, tomorrow, when AMD unveils TressFX in all of its flowing, beautiful glory. Hopefully with a mind-blowing tech demo involving a space marine taking off his helmet and revealing his luxurious locks, gracefully blowing in the wind. Or, you know, Lara Croft. That would work too.

re: AMD teases TressFX, a 'new frontier of realism in PC gaming' to be unveiled February 26

Sorry folk. I didn't drink my coffee this morning and totally wrote the article about Nvidia initially. It's quite clearly an announcement from AMD. No idea why I made such an odd association.

Should be fixed, and by all means let me know if there are any errors and I'll fix them immediately. Tech isn't my specialty, obviously. No excuses though. Pretty big, dumb mistake and I apologize for it.

re: AMD teases TressFX, a 'new frontier of realism in PC gaming' to be unveiled February 26

I must say. AMD are just opposing all of Nvidias benefits now. AMD were your go to for cheap good performance cards. Nvidia had the same sort of idea - costing a bit more, and they had A LOT of better technologies making them more worth while if you have the extra cash. Now these guys just have to make the decisions harder XD

re: AMD teases TressFX, a 'new frontier of realism in PC gaming' to be unveiled February 26

quote bluexy

Sorry folk. I didn't drink my coffee this morning and totally wrote the article about Nvidia initially. It's quite clearly an announcement from AMD. No idea why I made such an odd association.

Should be fixed, and by all means let me know if there are any errors and I'll fix them immediately. Tech isn't my specialty, obviously. No excuses though. Pretty big, dumb mistake and I apologize for it.

- Rory

Seems like a pretty logical mistake considering NVIDIA released their own hair demos not too long ago and AMD rarely markets its tech demonstrations Glad to see them stepping up now that they're basically championing next gen.

quote Blue Neon

I must say. AMD are just opposing all of Nvidias benefits now. AMD were your go to for cheap good performance cards. Nvidia had the same sort of idea - costing a bit more, and they had A LOT of better technologies making them more worth while if you have the extra cash. Now these guys just have to make the decisions harder XD

NVIDIA has always had fancy tech but realistically its never been implemented into a significant enough amount of titles in a meaningful way that would merit thought in a purchase. Just go for whoevers offering the best performance/price, although AMD might be stepping ahead if they optimise console games for their cards.

re: AMD teases TressFX, a 'new frontier of realism in PC gaming' to be unveiled February 26

It's not.. that complicated on the high level. When you can use complex math (past shader logic), you can have fairly complex models and wave-simulations running on the object collections - but only render the visible parts. And not - for example - the individual strands of hairs, with particle physics pushing each strand back and forth, and so on.

Because that would be extremely heavy. Even if updating or "flexing" strands of hairs in the mesh/model isn't actually that expensive.

It's similar to the way the fur was done in Shadow of The Colossus, or the fur we were kind of expecting in The Last Guardian. Same principle they use in WipeoutHD and GT5 (much more complex models in the game than what's rendered - the rendered detail is dynamic, adjusted to what the rasterizer actually can complete.. GT5 has a few physics details that are much more complex than what you can do with directcompute every frame as well..).

The irony is that the level of this is pretty low compared to what could have been made on the ps3.

-------------------"You're rhetoric is beyond the scope of any stable mind. "